SLAM Online’s Brendan Bowers checks in with Chris Paul to talk Kyrie Irving, and learning the NBA game under Coach Byron Scott:

“Chris Paul isn’t at all surprised by the season Kyrie Irving is putting together during his first trip through the Association. Paul, who played under the same coach as Irving way back in 2005 during his rookie year, expected as much out of the 19-year-old rookie from Duke before this season began.

“I’ve known Kyrie since he was in high school, and he’s a great player,” Paul said Wednesday. “It couldn’t be a better situation for him too, starting off his NBA career playing for Coach [Byron] Scott.”

“Coach Scott led me to Rookie of the Year, and it looks like he’s about to do that again.”

I’m not sure anyone’s arguing Paul’s last point regarding Irving’s ROY chances right now either.

Through Kyrie’s first 23 NBA games, he’s averaging 18.0 points and 5.1 assists per night—numbers that line up very close to how the benchmark of NBA point guards opened his career. Through Chris Paul’s first 23 games, he averaged 16.7 points and 7.0 assists.

It’s not just numbers drawing comparisons between the two players though. According to the guy who coached them both as rookies, “Kyrie also has a similar Chris Paul-type competitiveness as well.”

A comparison between he and Irving that Paul says is most definitely justified.

“Yeah, no doubt, I see the similarities in both our games for sure,” Paul added. “Kyrie’s really good with the ball, his decision making, and things like that. And I talk to him pretty often actually.”

“When the lockout ended he hit me, and asked me about different things that he could do to make sure everything went right with Coach,” Paul went on to tell SLAMonline. “I just told him, just be himself and play hard.

“Coach is my guy, I talk to Coach every couple weeks too, so I also told Coach Scott about Kyrie. But he knew he was getting a great player anyway.”

Unfortunately, a concussion kept Kyrie Irving out of Wednesday’s game against Paul and the visiting Clippers. A game the Cavaliers went onto win 99-92, despite a 16-point, 12-assist and 3-steal effort from CP3—the guy Byron Scott and everyone else in the NBA universe calls, “the League’s best point guard.”’

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